All Our Tips
Use Your Calendar
Thanks to Simon Chester among others, we know that the Supreme Court of Canada intends to release it’s judgment in the National Securities Regulator Reference on December 22 at 9:45 EST. You will most likely find it first here or maybe here.
Today’s Tip is to use your calendar to diarize important watches.
Why your electronic calendar rather than an RSS feed or other automated technology to send you what you are waiting for? I have a few reasons for using this method:
- Your calendar can be set to send you a beeping reminder
- You most likely open your email in-box as soon as you start your workday, which means your calendar is front and centre as well
- You can see if you have a conflict for when something is due to arrive and can delegate it
- Calendar appointments have room for plenty of notes about what you need to do when something arrives
- If you use a smart phone, your calendar is likely always in your pocket
I usually set my appointments for things like this to be one minute long.
Easily View Two Windows Side-by-Side on Your PC Desktop
Do you want to quickly see two windows side-by-side on your desktop? Yes, you can manually resize them by dragging and dropping the edges of each window, but there is a much faster way.
In Windows 7, you can easily arrange two windows next to each other by dragging them to the left or right side of your screen. Left-click on the taskbar (the bar across the top of each window) and drag and drop the window to the left or right side. Release when the entire window is highlighted.
In Windows XP or Vista, hold the Ctrl key down and click on the taskbar of each of the windows, then right-click the taskbar in one of those windows and select Tile Vertically. In XP and Vista you can use trick to arrange more than two windows.
Nice to see multiple windows at once. And if you want to take it to the next level, get yourself two monitors.
Top 10 Financial Errors: #1 – Cash Flow
“The road to success is always under construction” was once said by Lily Tomlin.
When you have deadlines looming and work piling up, it is easy to let the financial side of your practice slide a bit. After all – you are busy, so that means that you are making money, right?
Neglecting the financial side of the business of law can be the first step down a long and dangerously slippery slope leading to financial ruin. Few smaller firms have the luxury of professional managers to keep your finances on the straight, true course. But help is here! If you’ve been frustrated by money management, over the next 10 weeks, we are going to post our top 10 financial errors we have seen made by smaller law firms —and how to get safely past them.
1. Don’t Develop a Cash Flow and Financial Plan.
Starting out, all lawyers contemplate the financial side of their law practices. But in the haste to look after your client’s needs, some lawyers just don’t give the financial part of their practice the due attention it deserves—until things start to slide downhill. Don’t assume that things will simply “work out.” The road to success isn’t merely paved by working harder if you haven’t kept your eye on the business fundamentals.
When it comes to finances, timing is everything. Rent, salaries, other bills—all have to be paid on time or you do more than risk losing credit and incurring interest charges. You risk losing your business. When you have a situation of overdue payables and clients who refuse to pay their accounts, you start feeling the pinch and in consequence – you may delay making payments on your accounts – leading down the road to a financial squeeze.
So what to do? First, sit down and do the math. For an annual (12-month) period, prepare a month-by-month detailed budget. Build in all expenses that you know will occur, or that you can anticipate, and when they must be paid. Calculate in unexpected expenses, because it is a Murphy’s Law that costs will always be greater than you anticipate, particularly as the volume of work increases. Build in marketing time and expenses. Build in the fact that there will be a ‘delay’ between getting the work in the door, rendering the invoice and then eventually getting paid! Most of all, build in your draw, because if you don’t look after yourself, no one else will.
Compare the total expenses to your anticipated revenue in the time period when you expect to realize that income. If you don’t have a historical basis to forecast income, make an educated estimate based on your marketing plan. Yes, it takes planning. Financial security is rarely an accident.
Failing to develop a cash flow projection (your budget) as against anticipated expenses is one of the surest ways to get into financial trouble and as such, it tops our list as our #1 financial error.
New Laws, Compliance, and Alerts
Sometimes new law requires very broad compliance. It might be easy to dismiss an act like the one proclaimed in force on December 8, 2011 titled “An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service” as applying to Internet Service Providers only, but it might apply to you as well.
Today’s Tip is about identifying who in your organization to inform about a newly proclaimed law.
The says:
Order fixing December 8, 2011 as the day on which an ACT RESPECTING THE MANDATORY REPORTING OF INTERNET CHILD PORNOGRAPHY BY PERSONS WHO PROVIDE AN INTERNET SERVICE, chapter 4 of the Statutes of Canada 2011, COMES INTO FORCE.
To identfy who to alert, first read the act (or the Summary page). In this case, go to the Annual Statutes page at the Justice Canada Laws site and link to the act by chapter number.
Review the duties the act prescribes. This act contains broad duties to preserve data, notify police, and notify the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, to name a few.
See to whom the duties apply to by reviewing the definitions. This act very broadly defines providing Internet Service VERY broadly and this could affect clients like public libraries, academic institutions, coffee shops, municipalities, airport authorities – anyone who provides unlocked wifi. The duties apply to any person, and person means an individual, a corporation, a partnership or an unincorporated association or organization.
Look at the regulations if published. Note that regulations under this act “Internet Child Pornography Reporting Regulations” will be published in the December 21, 2011 Canada Gazette Part II.
These steps should help you decide who to inform within your organization.
Dealing With DOCX, XLSX and PPTX Files if You Use an Older Version of Office
Once or twice a month I hear from people who are struggling to open docx files. Read on for the reasons why this happens, and what to do about it.
Office 2007 introduced new file formats – docx for Word, xlsx for Excel and pptx for PowerPoint (formally known as the Office Open XML format). Unfortunately, people using Office 2003 or earlier versions of Office (and there are still a bunch of them) will find they can’t open files in these new formats.
The solution is simple. If you are using Office 2003, or one of the earlier versions of Office, you need to download and install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. It will allow older versions of Office to open files that are in these new file formats. The Compatibility Pack will convert these files and allow you edit and save them in either the old or new file format for each of the prospective Office programs. The Compatibility Pack will work with Office 2000, XP and 2003.
. Make sure you have installed the latest Office updates before you install the Compatibility Pack.
Kick Procrastination to the Curb!
“I’m going to stop putting things off, starting tomorrow!” said Sam Levenson.
Do you feel like you work hard every day yet don’t accomplish the things that really need to be done? If so, you’re not alone. Many lawyers deal daily with a subtle form of procrastination – working on “busywork” to avoid the important but intimidating jobs that they should be working on. This behavior creates a vicious cycle that causes stress which, often, leads to additional procrastination which, in turn, leads to more stress and, you guessed it, more procrastination.
Meg Spencer Dixon of Spencer Consulting has written perceptively about lawyer procrastination and what you can do to stop putting off the important jobs in Overcoming Procrastination: How to Get Things Done Despite Yourself.
Here’s our take on her nine techniques, which are descibed more fully in her article. Put one or two of them to work today, and start to see results that will, in turn, encourage a virtuous cycle of getting the important jobs done – on time or even early!
1. Don’t try to do it all at once. Segment a large elephant of a job into small, discreet tasks and then set aside fifteen or twenty minutes each day to tackle one or two.
2. Start anywhere. When you segment a large job, it’s not so important which task is done first, which then frees you up to get started on whatever is most appealing.
3. Start imperfectly. Many lawyers are perfectionists. Give yourself permission to work on a “rough draft” of projects or tasks, secure in the knowledge that if you just get started you’ll have plenty of time to perfect the project before its due date.
4. Drive yourself crazy by doing nothing. This technique involves getting together the materials needed for starting a project and then forcing yourself to just sit and look at them for exactly seven minutes (by a clock or timer) before doing anything. By the time the seven minutes are over ideas will be flowing and you’ll be itching to get started.
5. Work no more than fifteen minutes at a time. Also known as the “Pomodoro technique” – named for a little tomato-shaped timer – the idea here is to build momentum by giving yourself permission at the end of the fifteen minute period to take a break or immediately plunge in for an additional fifteen minutes.
6. Start, even if you’re not in the mood. Habits are extremely hard to break. Develop a good habit of starting on something important as soon as you sit down rather than a bad habit of seeking a time filler or two to kill some time first.
7. Realize that unpleasant tasks don’t get any easier over time. Delaying the unpleasant makes it no less unpleasant – it just adds a secondary layer of stress. Don’t ease into the cold water – just plunge right in!
8. Schedule a “catch-up” day. Plan one day a week or month and do nothing but annoying small tasks that you tend to let slide. You’ll dread the day, but not the way you feel when it’s over.
9. Honor your leisure time. When you stand firm on the time that you’ve scheduled for things that you really want to do, you benefit in two ways. First, it relieves the stress that constant work and worry build up. Second, it helps you to make the most of your work time so that you can meet the deadlines that will allow you to claim your reward!
We are going to close this tip with a final quote from Mae West: “He who hesitates is last.” Don’t hesitate to start making changes today!
Consideration of a Statute
Following on last week’s theme, Today’s Tip is about judicial consideration of statutes.
CanLII: Navigate to the act that you are interested in and click the Noteup Tab. This tool allows for a judicial consideration search for the whole act, or for a particular section.
CanLII very correctly offers this warning:
Results are highly sensitive to the manner in which citations to a specific section are formatted in the texts by their authors. Some of them are not currently recognized by CanLII.
This feature does not currently support subsections or other subdivisions of a section. Therefore you may search for a section number such as 43 or 231.7, but not for subdivisions such as 43(2) or 231.7(4)(f).
LexisNexis Quicklaw: Use the Noteup with QuickCite box on the main page to go directly to the noteup page for a section of an act. This works best if you are noting up a current section, and when you have the citation entered exactly. You can also navigate to a section of an act and clik the citator symbol or the Noteup with QuickCITE link.
Westlaw Canada: Use the Find/KeyCite a Document section from the main LawSource page, select the KeyCite radio button and enter the legislation title, section and jurisdiction. This will find every noteup of that section of the named act, current and historical, but remember section numbers change over time. Manslaughter in one RSC criminal code could be assault in the next.
As John Hedley commented about cases, it is also a good idea to follow noteups with a proximity search to identify full text decisions that may have been missed by the citation services. I use this search:
Name [within 2] of [within 2] Act [within 10] section# (only the number)
Happy considering.
Install or Update Multiple Computer Apps in Minutes With Ninite
Do you dread moving to a new computer because you have reinstall all your software? If so, you need to know about Nitite. This amazing free service automatically downloads and installs more than 90 popular no-fee apps. Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, Skype, Google Talk, iTunes, Hulu, Spotify, QuickTime, Flash, Java, Adobe Reader, Dropbox, Evernote, Mozy, Google Earth to name a few. Am betting most of these apps are on your computer.
Ninite fully automates the installers to run offscreen. No Clicking Next, Next, Next… It also automatically says “No” to toolbars and other junk. The Ninite installer always installs an app’s latest version – and it does updates too – just run your Ninite installer again and it will update the apps to their latest versions. No account, signup, or client needed. Wow!
Ninite is a must for anyone lucky enough to get a computer from Santa this year. It will save you hours of tedious installations.
Renew & Learn
Laura and I have been running a series of finance and strategic planning tips over the last while. This is the capstone tip in the series.
Henri Frederic Amiel once said: “So as long as a person is capable of self-renewal, they are a living being.”
In order to keep being strategic and focused, you need to keep your skill set current and sharp. Take time to not only stay current on your area of the law but also in the skills necessary for the effective running of your practice.
You are not only a professional in your legal work, you are running a professional service organization and that task is equally important with doing great work. Regularly gain exposure to new thinking in management and look creatively for new ways to lever your time, knowledge, staff and technology. Remember that new developments in other areas can be brought into the legal field and applied for great success; in order to do that you need to do an ‘environmental scan’ every so often to see what is out there that you can bring back to your practice. Go to a conference that is only tangentially related to your area of practice and see what fresh ways of thinking it can produce for you.
Take vacations that allow you to relax and leave the stress of the office behind. Come back to the office refreshed and reinvigorated. At all times, don’t fail to have fun and celebrate successes in public while consoling losses privately.
Consideration of a Case
Today’s Tip idea comes from Corey McDonald, Paralegal with Justice Canada in Edmonton.
Cory mentioned yesterday that it would be helpful to know the different steps for doing the same task in LexisNexis Quicklaw and Westlaw Canada and CanLII. I chose to write about Noting Up. Here are the steps for each system for noting up a case to see if it has been judicially considered
CanLII – click on the “search decisions citing this decision” link.
LexisNexis Quicklaw – click on the citator symbol or the “noteup with QuickCITE” link at the top of the decision or go directly to a noteup record with a citation of a case from the Noteup with QuickCITE search box on the main page
Westlaw Canada – click on the citations symbol or choose the Related Info tab when viewing a case then the ‘citing references’ link or go directly to a noteup using the Keycite radio button under Find by citation from the main page
The Alberta Law Libraries has a Research Guide on this topic too.
